


The colour of magic

by livia_bj



Category: Constantine: The Hellblazer (Comics), Hellblazer & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, brief mention to Kit Ryan, don't need to know the comics to read this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:13:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22865365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livia_bj/pseuds/livia_bj
Summary: Only wizards (and cats) can see the octarine, the colour of magic. John Constantine didn't know that when he was a kid, he only knew that he was a weirdo, seeing things that others couldn't see. Meeeh... who cares.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	The colour of magic

**Author's Note:**

> I obviously took the idea of the octarine out of the Discworld books.  
> Only wizards and cats can see the octarine, the eight colour in the Discworld. I was just.... doing nothing I guess, when I thought...  
> Maybe John can see it.  
> And then, this was born.
> 
> I'm not an English speaker. Forgive all my grammar mistakes. And I tried to make them talk as they would do but...  
> meeeh....  
> know what. Just forgive me. And enjoy if you still want to read it despite this.

They had been stuck on that road since forever. No matter that the dashboard clock was showing that only 15 minutes had gone by, John could swear it has been since forever.  
Annoyed, he dropped his head back and looked through his window. At least it was not raining anymore. In fact, the dark grey clouds were breaking apart at some points and some rays of sun were going through… Crepuscular rays, was the name for that. He didn’t know why he did know that.

He then noticed that people in the other cars were pointing their phones up to the sky and taking pictures of something. He prayed it was not some fucking descending angel…

“Oh, look how nice.” Chas smiled.

He paid attention. A perfect rainbow was shining against the dark clouds. A perfect rainbow with its perfect eight colours.

John relaxed against his seat, but there was a question burning his tongue. A question he had asked a hundred of times before.

He tried one more time.

“Chas, how many colours do you see?”

He didn’t bother to listen to the answer. He didn’t care. He was just checking that everything was alright. Also secretly needing to check that he’s still a mage, that he still had the privilege of seeing the octarine while others can’t. Others that are ordinary people. Like Chas.

He mused, now, lost in his memories.

Cheryl was also ordinary, she never got to see the rainbow as he always did…

..................

(Liverpool, 30 years before)

Miss Adler looked through the window. It had been raining for hours now, like the day before, and the day before, and the day before that one too…  
But now it seemed that finally, and miraculously, the dark grey clouds were becoming lighter and some blue spots between them could be seen here and there.

She took a look inside the classroom again; the children seemed to be doing exactly what they were doing a few minutes ago. The good news was that for once they weren’t fighting each other. Not even that weird John Constantine kid, he was behaving pretty well lately.

She sighed and looked outside once more. The sun was timidly shining now.

“Oi! Look, kids. A full rainbow! Come and see. You can perfectly count all the seven colours.”

The children gathered around the window. It was rare to see something beautiful in Liverpool those days.

“Eight.”

She heard a little voice saying.

“What?”

“There are eight colours.”

She forced herself to smile down at the boy who had spoken.

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, John. See? Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Seven.”

The boy looked at the rainbow again. His lips moving while counting. He shook his head.

“I see eight, Miss Adler.”

The woman inhaled slowly. That kid was damn right weird.

“You must be looking at something else.” She just said, turning around and returning to her desk.

She asked the class to draw the rainbow, just for giving them something to do before going home. After that, time just passed by until the children started bringing their papers to her desk. She looked at what John had done; his rainbow had seven perfect colours and one strange thing.

“What’s this?”

“My rainbow.”

“I mean, this.” She pointed out at the blurry thing.

“Don’t know how to really do it. We don’t have crayons of that colour, and mixing is not working.”

“So, this is your eighth colour.” She said, picking up again the idea from earlier.

The boy nodded.

“Fine, John Constantine. So, if you’re so clever, then tell me… What’s the name of this colour?”

“What the hell I know. I’m not the bloody teacher here.”

And then he shut his eyes.  
Bollocks.

He was going to be sent home again. Not that his father really cared about what was going on at the school, but he loved having an excuse for beating him up. Not that he ever needed one, though.

Later at home he would ask Cheryl if she had ever seen a rainbow.

“I suppose.”

And he would ask how many colours it has.

“Seven, I suppose. Don’t fucking care, John. Just leave me alone.”

“Well, how’d you know anyway. You don’t even know if you have seen any.”

She threw a shoe at him, forcing him to leave the sanctity of her bedroom.

………………………

For many years he lived with the fact that he just happened to see one more colour than everybody else, so he stopped thinking about it. Even less talking about it. It made others uncomfortable, as he soon learnt.  
Like on the day they did a decomposition of white light also in school, he just obediently drew the mandatory seven colours that everybody else was seeing. It didn’t worth the trouble of trying to explain that he was such a useless thing that he was not even able to count seven stupid colours properly.

He never stopped looking at rainbows and wondering if there was something wrong about him. Well, there were actually many wrong things about him. His mere existence was wrong, as he had always been told by his father. He was not sure as how that could be related to the fact of seeing an extra colour, but finding out an answer was not on his list of priorities.

It was no until he met Anne Marie that he found someone like him for the first time, some able to see the octarine. In fact, it was Anne who told him what the fuck was the octarine. Anne told him about… many things.

Things that at first were intriguing, then exciting and finally addictive.

He once read that, apparently, only a small percentage of people are inclined to grow an addiction. Ah, his luck…  
Truth or not, he had indeed grown a few: addiction to nicotine, to danger, to pain, to sex, to alcohol, to magic. Nothing was as good as a good rush of black magic.

And so it has begun.  
He, the helpless lost boy who found power through magic for the first time in his life. Not a wonder that it became an addiction.

Through the gates of insanity and on the edge of humanity; that’s how he really became John Constantine.

........................

(London, 22 years before)

The girl reading a book at the bus stop had been trying really hard to ignore him, but she was fed up by now.

“Stop looking at me, you creepy idiot.”

John snorted.

“I’m not looking at you, stupid cow. I’m looking at your book.”

“Like if you knew how to read.”

John looked away. Bugger this.

But there was something there… Something he needed to say. Something burning his tongue. He knew the girl was going to laugh at him, but…

“Was wondering if you realize it’s kinda shining.”

He waited for the inevitable reaction.

The girl didn’t laugh.

In fact, now she was really looking at him for the first time.

“What do you mean shining? Like gold?”

“Not like gold. Like… Know what? Forget it.”

And he started walking away.

“Oi! Wait!”

She run after him.

“What’s your name?”

“John…Constantine.”

“I’m Anne-Marie.”

“Ok.” He shrugged.

“I was wondering if you would come with me to…some place.”

“If you want to kidnap me no one is paying money to get me back, just telling you.”

She half smiled.

“I’m assuming the consequences.”

(Ah, if only she had known back then.)

The place where she took him was an antique shop and library. They walked all the way up there in silence. They didn’t know each other after all, and what could they have in common?

Once in the shop she turned to him.

“Just take a look around.”

“Look, I’m not interested in books or in…” he took a cameo in his hands, “whatever this is.”

“I’d like to know if you can see any other shining objects around, whatever that means for you.”

“Now you’re making fun of me!”

He looked furiously at her and tried to leave, but she stopped once again.

“No! Wait, please! Tell me, John. How many colours does the rainbow have?”

If that was a joke, it was a heavy one. John felt his heart pounding in his chest. He felt the urge of running away. But… What if?...

What if…  
What if…

“Eight.”

He finally confessed in a whisper.

“And you don’t know how to call it.”

He shook his head.

And then she smiled the most wonderful smile.

“That, John Constantine, is the octarine. The colour of magic.”

...................

(Present day)

The rainbow was gone now. The octarine, the only thing reminding him that he was who he was, was gone.

“Ugh, traffic sucks.” Growled Chas

John slouched in his seat and deeper into his trench coat. He still had time before they got to the airport, time to be more like John and less like Constantine. To be normal, as  
someone could say. He sometimes wished to be normal. To still be with Kit. To never again see the colour of magic.

But then again…

Where would be the fun of that?

Who would John Constantine be if not a conman, a thief, a warlock, a Hellblazer?

He needed all that to be someone.

He closed his eyes and let himself drift to sleep. No point in thinking about it.

“Chas, just let me know when we get to the airport.”


End file.
